Diocese

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Easton Catholic High School Alumni Association will be celebrates its 100th reunion at Green Pond Country Club on Sunday. Msgr. Alfred Schlert, Vicar General of the Diocese of Allentown, will be the guest speaker, followed by Notre Dame High School Principal Joseph R. Kramer Jr. Attendees include Marie Pasch, Class of 1932, celebrating 80 years, and Helen Carr, Class of 1933, celebrating 79 years. Also celebrating are sisters Geraldine Hammerstone Dolan, Class of 1933, Jeannette Hammerstone Lucey, Class of 1936, and Elizabeth Hammerstone Cavanaugh, Class of 1939.

A former Roman Catholic priest admitted Monday in Berks County Court that he stole money donated to a Reading parish, but disputed the amount. Richard Nachajski, 66, of York pleaded guilty to theft for taking money donated to St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, Millmont, between 1997 and 2009. He was pastor there from 1992 until 2009, when he was granted a leave of absence for personal reasons. Nachajski admitted taking more than $100,000, but denied it was more than $400,000, as investigators charged.

Two more priests have been found unsuitable for ministry following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday. The allegation concerning Monsignor George J. Mazzotta, 73, who last served at Stella Maris in Philadelphia, and Saint Madeline Parish in Ridley, surfaced in 2010, the diocese said. Monsignor Hugh P. Campbell, 77, self-reported his alleged sexual abuse of a minor in December 2011 and was placed on administrative leave.

The St. Thomas More CYO basketball program has helped to produce some of the most prominent names in local boys basketball over the past three decades … Eddie and Billy McCaffrey, Gabe Lewullis, Kyle Griffin, Brian Hunter, Neale and Pat Boyle. … to mention just a few. Record-breaking football stars Brendan Nosovitch and Kevin Gulyas also played hoops for the Salisbury Township parish. But despite those special athletes, St. Thomas More has never won the State CYO Grade School championship.

A popular Allentown Diocese priest who fled oppression in west Africa to "follow Jesus" to the United States was removed as assistant pastor at a Berks County parish for having an inappropriate relationship with an 18-year-old woman. The Rev. Cletus Onyegbule, 44, was removed from his post at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Sinking Spring, where he'd been since 2009, Bishop John O. Barres announced over the weekend. Onyegbule was ordained in 2002 and served at St. Ambrose Church in Schuylkill Haven and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Bethlehem Township before his assignment in Sinking Spring.

The Diocese of Allentown has enlisted its workers in a fight to defeat an Obama administration mandate that religious employers pay for contraceptives and other reproductive health care services. Unless the rule is overturned, the Catholic diocese would end health care benefits altogether for about 1,000 teachers, administrators and other employees when it takes effect in August 2013, the diocese warned in a letter last week. "The Church cannot be placed in the moral position of directly funding abortions and contraception through these imposed health care reforms," diocese Vicar General Alfred A. Schlert wrote to employees.

There's a standoff going on: The nation's Catholic bishops are on one side and the federal government on the other. At issue are thorny questions about reproductive rights and religious conscience, and it all seems destined to play out in court. It began Jan. 20, when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius affirmed a rule that will require health insurers to offer contraception and sterilization services in policies, meaning employers offering health insurance will have to offer those services.

A Muslim woman who claimed she was fired from her job as a bookkeeper at an Easton church because she complained about religious discrimination by the monsignor has settled a federal lawsuit she filed against the Diocese of Allentown. The terms of the settlement between Omayma Arafa and the diocese have not been disclosed in court documents and attorneys on both sides of the case did not return phone calls seeking comment. A settlement conference had been scheduled for Dec. 22 in Philadelphia, but before the hearing, the parties notified federal Magistrate Judge L. Felipe Restrepo they had reached a settlement.